


Merry Christmas

by Harbinger



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Holidays, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 04:57:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harbinger/pseuds/Harbinger
Summary: “Merry Christmas, Richard,” Alex blurts it on a whim, even as her finger lingers over the end call button.“Merry Christmas, Alex.”





	Merry Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> _arrives 15 minutes late with starbucks to a new fandom_ my roommate, for whom this was written, dragged me kicking and screaming into the black tapes and now i am Hooked. be gentle, new fandom, new characters, still getting used to them. expect more because oh god i am stragan trash. trash i tell you. lightly beta'd. set sometime in season 1 but deliberately vague. come prompt my roommate at [finnmcsinn](finnmcsinn.tumblr.com) or me at [hookisms.](hookisms.tumblr.com) enjoy!

The off-season for the podcast coincides rather well to the off-season of schools and December winds down with finals and term papers and more research into the Order of the Cenophus than he currently cares to do. Though he has been living almost full-time in Seattle, Strand had decided to take - well, not time off but certainly a mini-vacation from Seattle to return to Chicago. As much as he enjoys guest-teaching at universities and colleges throughout the United States, the true passion that flames into life within his breast stirs for the Institute. And in truth, he has missed Chicago quite a bit. Seattle is fine and a beautiful city, but he has grown over the years to appreciate the cool quiet that is Chicago.

The cold quiet, at the moment. The thermometer attached to the window of his corner loft reads at negative two degrees Fahrenheit. Snow falls lazily down from the heavens, covering Chicago in a heavy blanket and turning all the wold to white. 

Of course, Strand pays little attention to that. The thermostat in his apartment sits at a delightfully cozy 75 degrees. For the last two hours, he has been seated on the couch, a now very, very cold cup of tea on the coffee table beside him, with a plate of scones that had been warm two hours ago when he sat down but have now turned very cold and very hard and are mostly inedible now. A throw blanket - the ugliest throw blanket in all the world, black but patterned with little white ghosts of all things, something Coralee had bought him as a joke - rests over his legs to keep them warm while he types notes on a laptop from a book that sits beside him. 

A familiar username pops up into the bottom right corner of his laptop mere seconds before the ringtone of a Skype call hums from the speakers. A sigh escapes but he clicks accept, unsurprised when a video call opens up. 

“Hello, Alex,” he greets, offering a small smile.

Wearing long sleeved pajamas and a jacket on top of that, she looks disheveled and oddly cute, short hair sticking up at all angles possible and eyes tired. Though just after noon here in Chicago, it is just ten there and she looks like she may have only just emerged from a cocoon of blankets and pillows. She seems to be seated at her breakfast table; he can see a faint bit of steam rising off to her left, his right, as if from a coffee mug.

“Good morn--er, afternoo--um. What time is it there?” And as ever, she sounds like she might have left her brain somewhere in bed, too. Yet, he cannot help but to smile somewhat, amused.

“Afternoon. It is,” a downward glance to the computer clock gives him the correct time, “12:11 pm.”

“Oh. Afternoon, then. What are you doing?” She sounds so chipper despite looking very tired and even as he watches, she takes a huge gulp of coffee.

“I am working on finding something I saw in this,” a pause to hold the book up so she can read the title of it herself, “that I think might be helpful to us. So far, though, no luck.” The book is lowered once more and Strand turns to stretch out on the couch, putting the computer on the table so they can talk more easily. “What are you plans today?”

Alex is in the midst of yawning, hiding it behind an arm hidden by a sleeve way too big for her when he asks the question so the doctor waits, amused and patient, for her to respond. “Oh. Sorry. I’m really sleepy today. Going to my mom’s house for Christmas.”

“Christmas?” For a moment, confusion mars his tone, then his eyes fall once more to the timestamp on his computer. 12:13 pm, 12/25/2015. “Oh. So it is.”

In all fairness to him, most grown, currently single men do not celebrate Christmas. Areligious as he is and with a grown child who talks to him sparingly, Strand has no one to celebrate Christmas with. The only person with whom he might is currently more than two thousand miles away and yawning into her coffee. 

“Mhm. Gonna suck. James is very into Christmas - music, presents, even though they’re always terrible - Richard, I have so many bad sweaters from him, I could literally start a sweater library - and baking - and I just hate it. And him. Have I mentioned that?”

As usual, her line of conversation is somewhat...troublesome to follow. For a moment, he can only attempt to parse the numerous subtopics under the single header topic of her stepfather and Christmas. “You may have mentioned it once or twice,” he replies, barely hiding the smile that wants to play on his lips.

Alex eyes him for a moment, clearly sensing the sardonic lilt that had been in his tone. But she seems to decide not to comment on it. “What are you doing today? For Christmas, I mean? Is Charlie…?”

“No.” His tone perhaps comes out a touch too firm because some of her enthusiasm seems to slip a bit. Strand modulates his tone then. “No, she’s still in Italy. She’ll call later, I’m sure.” Though he sounds sure, it is mostly to try and assure Alex he will not be alone all of Christmas day. Strand knows the chances of Charlie calling is about as slim as his father or Coralee walking through the door of his apartment.

“Oh. Well. Good.” For a moment, Alex falls quiet, munching on one of those Walmart brand frosted sugar cookies. She has to go soon - it is a three hour drive to her mother’s house and it will be longer today because of the weather and the day itself and her mother wants her there no later than 1 PM - but she’s oddly reluctant to leave him alone on Christmas. Which is, of course, ridiculous, she knows. Strand is an adult, he can handle a holiday alone. 

For a moment, the pair sit in companionable silence, Alex nibbling her cookie and drinking her coffee, Strand flipping through the book in an attempt to find whatever it is he’s looking for. Though they are two thousand miles and two time zones apart, like this they could be in the same room, with him on the couch and her in the kitchen trying to find food. It is domestic, if only in a slightly strange cyber sense.

Finally, Alex sighs, breaking the moment between them. “I have to go. Mom’ll be upset if I’m late.” She slithers off the chair she’d been sitting on as if about to leave but then pauses, her green eyes troubled. “Text me if you, um, if you wanna talk or anything. Please text me, I’ll be so miserable.”

One of those low laughs escapes him, breathy and soft. “Alright.” He can do that, if nothing else. “Let me know when you get there.”

Alex nods, hair bobbing to and fro and making her look rather like a startled bird. That thought has him hiding a smile behind the book. 

“Merry Christmas, Richard,” Alex blurts it on a whim, even as her finger lingers over the end call button.

“Merry Christmas, Alex.”


End file.
